The New Philosophy and Universal Languages in Seventeenth-century England: Bacon, Hobbes, and WilkinsIn all three, a more perfect language comprises both a model and a means for achieving a more perfect philosophy, and that philosophy, in turn, a vehicle for promoting political authority in the state. Those three projects are the new philosophies of Lord Chancellor Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Bishop John Wilkins, all of which can be usefully understood in the broader context of the century's cultural politics and in the more specific circumstances of the century's fascination with the construction of a universal language. Bacon, Hobbes, and Wilkins construct philosophies out of deeply held convictions about the need to provide a saving form of knowledge to remedy cultural crises. |
From inside the book
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Page 20
... human agreement . If the cultivation of the sign brings enhanced analytic power to the natural philosophies of the seventeenth century , it carries , too , as a merely human construct , enormous problems of authority — problems that ...
... human agreement . If the cultivation of the sign brings enhanced analytic power to the natural philosophies of the seventeenth century , it carries , too , as a merely human construct , enormous problems of authority — problems that ...
Page 22
... making reason operate as the scout and spy for desire , as the art that functions by reckoning upon the consequences of names to remedy natural fears , Hobbes attempts to find a logical bridge between human beings as 22 PREFACE.
... making reason operate as the scout and spy for desire , as the art that functions by reckoning upon the consequences of names to remedy natural fears , Hobbes attempts to find a logical bridge between human beings as 22 PREFACE.
Page 23
... human beings as the determined objects of desire ( the victims of monstrous rhetoric ) and the philosopher as the determining architect of sovereign meaning ( the purveyor of logical cer- tainties ) . His bridge is built with ...
... human beings as the determined objects of desire ( the victims of monstrous rhetoric ) and the philosopher as the determining architect of sovereign meaning ( the purveyor of logical cer- tainties ) . His bridge is built with ...
Page 29
... human knowledge in a single sentence : 1 Indeed , I hold that if any one could survey the thoughts , hear the conversa- tions , read the writings , estimate the actions of all the wise men who have lived from the very beginning of the ...
... human knowledge in a single sentence : 1 Indeed , I hold that if any one could survey the thoughts , hear the conversa- tions , read the writings , estimate the actions of all the wise men who have lived from the very beginning of the ...
Page 32
... human society , when woman , for whom he had been seized with desire , was added to man as his partner . " 15 As always , Comenius is recall- ing the Bible , and reminding us that the first words spoken by man were erotic in kind ...
... human society , when woman , for whom he had been seized with desire , was added to man as his partner . " 15 As always , Comenius is recall- ing the Bible , and reminding us that the first words spoken by man were erotic in kind ...
Contents
9 | |
29 | |
Bacon and the Advent of Universal Languages | 53 |
Natural Philosophy and the Politics of Jacobean Intervention | 55 |
Language and the Natural Philosophy of the Lord Chancellor | 87 |
Hobbes and the State of the Universal Language | 113 |
The Universal Philosophy of Politics and Monsters of Metaphor | 115 |
The Logic and Language of Leviathan From Monstrous Metaphor to Civil Philosophy | 145 |
The New Philosophy of the FiscalMilitary State Cultural Politics and the Language of Interest | 179 |
Interest Achieved The Royal Society and the Political Concernments of Communications | 208 |
A Center Inside the Center Wilkins and the Philosophical Language | 228 |
From Lamentations to Laughter | 263 |
Notes | 269 |
Select Bibliography | 322 |
Index | 347 |
Wilkins and the Making of the Universal Language | 177 |
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Common terms and phrases
achieve ancien régime appears argues argument Bacon's natural philosophy Baconian Bruno Latour century century's Charles Charles's civil claims Comenius commerce common consequences construct contemporary context create credit and credibility crises crucial cultural desire discourse divine domain Dryden effort elites English epistemological essay fear Francis Bacon Graunt's guage Henry Oldenburg Hobbes Hobbes's human humanist Ibid ideology important Instauration J. G. A. Pocock Jacobean James James's John Wilkins king king's knowledge language of interest Leviathan linguistic London Lord Chancellor Bacon means ment metaphor monarchy monsters monstrous natural philosophy notions Parliament philosopher's philosophical language political pragmatic promise rational real character reason religious Renaissance Restoration Restoration's rhetoric Royal Society scientific secure seventeenth seventeenth-century England significance signs social Society's sovereign authority speech Sprat theory Thomas Hobbes tion tradition transparent truth turn understanding universal language movement vocabulary Wilkins's words and things writes
Popular passages
Page 171 - Earth they may nourish themselves and live contentedly, is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their Wills, by plurality of voices, unto one Will...
Page 91 - ... the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and " copia" of speech, which then began to flourish.
Page 95 - And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things.
Page 34 - But yet, if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow that all the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment; and so indeed are perfect cheats...
Page 172 - This is more than consent, or concord ; it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man with every man...
Page 147 - Afterwards men made use of the same word metaphorically, for the knowledge of their own secret facts and secret thoughts; and therefore it is rhetorically said that the conscience is a thousand witnesses.
Page 159 - Seeing then that truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations, a man that seeketh precise truth had need to remember what every name he uses stands for, and to place it accordingly, or else he will find himself entangled in words, as a bird in lime twigs, the more he struggles the more belimed.
Page 134 - If there had not first been an opinion received of the greatest part of England that these powers were divided between the King and the Lords and the House of Commons, the people had never been divided and fallen into this Civil War...
Page 62 - That which concerns the mystery of the king's power is not lawful to be disputed ; for that is to wade into the weakness of princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.
Page 161 - For the thoughts are to the desires, as scouts, and spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things desired...